About
We Give Victims
Their Names Back
Contexto Watch is not a statistics platform. It is a platform of documented human experiences — each case individually verified, each victim named where safe, each story told with the rigour of investigative journalism and the care of human rights advocacy.
The Problem With Numbers Alone
Conventional human rights databases count incidents. They tell you that in a given year, 327 journalists were detained in a given region. That number matters. But it can also obscure. It turns Maria, a 34-year-old investigative reporter detained for covering a corruption scandal, into a unit in a spreadsheet.
Contexto Watch was built on a different premise: that accountability requires specificity. A perpetrator cannot be held responsible for "an incident." They must be held responsible for what they did to a named person, on a specific date, in a documented place, witnessed and verified by a recognised organisation.
Our Methodology
Individual Case Documentation
Every entry on Contexto Watch represents a single documented case — not a category, not an aggregate. Each case has a title that names the violation, a summary of the specific circumstances, the date of the incident, and the country where it occurred.
Named Victims Where Safe to Disclose
We name victims in our case titles and summaries wherever it is safe to do so and where the victim or their representatives have consented or the information is already in the public domain through credible sources. When naming a victim could endanger them or their family, we anonymise while preserving all other verifiable details.
Primary Source Verification
No case is published without a verifiable primary source from a recognised human rights agency or civil society organisation. We do not publish anonymous tips, unverified social media reports, or single-source claims. Every case links directly to the original documentation.
Cross-Referenced Agency Data
Where multiple agencies have documented the same case, we cross-reference their reports. Discrepancies are noted. When agencies disagree on facts, we present both accounts and indicate the source of each claim. This triangulation methodology is drawn from investigative journalism practice and UN human rights monitoring standards.
Incident Date vs. Publication Date
Our statistics are indexed by the date the violation occurred, not the date it was reported or added to this platform. This means our data reflects the real timeline of abuses, not the timeline of media coverage. A case documented five years after the incident is indexed to the year it happened.
Category Classification
Each case is classified by the primary affected group — journalists, politicians, activists, women, LGBTQ+ persons, minorities, refugees, or environmental defenders. This classification follows the framework used by the UN Special Procedures and allows for targeted analysis of patterns of abuse against specific groups.
How We Differ From Conventional Databases
Conventional databases
- ×Count incidents as numbers
- ×Aggregate by region or year
- ×Often anonymise all victims
- ×No direct source links
- ×Indexed by report date
- ×Not publicly commentable
Contexto Watch
- ✓Documents individuals with names
- ✓Individual case narratives
- ✓Names victims where safe
- ✓Direct link to primary source
- ✓Indexed by incident date
- ✓Open for public commentary
Verified Source Organisations
We only publish cases documented by the following categories of organisations:
National and regional civil society organisations are accepted as sources when they are members of international networks such as CIVICUS, OMCT, or FIDH, or when their documentation has been cited by one of the above organisations.
About Contexto gUG
Contexto Watch is a project of Contexto gUG, a non-profit organisation registered in Hannover, Germany, focused on fact-checking, investigative journalism, election observation, and democracy promotion across PALOP countries and Latin America. We operate independently of governments, political parties, and corporate sponsors.